Album of the Day

Previously “The Band” behind Bob Dylan in the mid-1960s, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson began recording on their own in a roots-rock style that might now be called Americana (though most members hailed from Canada). After more than a decade together, the quintet decided to go out in style with a final concert at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom on this day in 1976. Billed as THE LAST WALTZ, the show included guest performances by such greats as Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters and Neil Young, and was captured on film by director Martin Scorsese. The accompanying soundtrack shows why The Band was among the most acclaimed groups in rock, with stirring live versions of “Up On Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “The Shape I'm In” and an elegiac suite recorded specifically for the album.